On the town: 'Unexpected joys of attached living' attract buyers to townhouses

Feb. 21, 2014

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Written by

Christine Gritmon

For the Journal News

Tom Caton and his wife Patti O'Shaughnessy opted for a townhouse instead of a traditional home when they decided to move to Westchester. The couple is photographed in their spacious kitchen in Bronxville. / Tania Savayan/The Journal News

What is a townhouse?

Townhouses, once primarily found in cities, are now found in suburban and rural areas as well - so, absent the "town" part, what differentiates a townhouse from a regular house? One big giveaway is that a townhouse is always physically attached to one or more other townhouses. Unlike an apartment, townhouses generally have their own individual entrances to the outside, and the units aren't usually connected to each other via any sort of interior hallway. They also feature multiple floors - the typical townhouse occupies a small footprint but comprises a relatively large total living space within multiple stacked stories. Townhouses in the suburbs are frequently part of larger developments, although some townhouses are just small sets of attached homes amidst a neighborhood of detached houses. Despite their physical attachment, they are taxed (and function) as single-family homes, regardless of whether or not they are part of a development - the subtype is "attached," differentiating the townhouse from a detached home. —Christine Gritmon

Looking for a townhouse

So what should buyers look for when choosing a location they can call home? “Convenience, community and cost—those three Cs,” advises Yienger. “Any potential buyer should look at the desirability of meeting their family’s needs—financially, culturally, educationally—because they vary widely in terms of what is important to a family. A baby boomer with grown children might be looking for something for completely different reasons than a young family matriculating up from the city.” —Christine Gritmon

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It seems everywhere you look lately, new townhouse developments are sprouting up, especially along the commuter train lines. But wait — isn’t this suburbia, land of the detached single-family home with the huge yard and the white picket fence?

“There’s a lot of people in the market that want to buy a townhouse because, quite frankly, they want the ease of living,” says Houlihan Lawrence agent Elizabeth Yienger, herself a townhouse dweller. “I call it, ‘the unexpected joys of attached living’ because there’s just such community in terms of looking out for one another and helping each other,” Yienger says.

Yienger ticks off the benefits of living in a suburban townhouse, which doesn’t much differ from the townhouses you’d find in the city.

“You have the benefits of living somewhat in a single family home without the cost attached, so your utilities are going to be lower; your gardening costs are going to be lower, your monthly caring costs are going to be less. Sharing landscapers, the cost of getting the driveways plowed, maybe getting your homes painted at the same time, getting the roof replaced…

“It gives the opportunity to have the village style of living. And today’s buyer is really looking for a more turnkey lifestyle.”

Yienger warns that cost-sharing benefits do vary by community — a large group of attached homes might be more likely to have some sort of homeowners association, whereas in a smaller cluster of homes, owners may find it more beneficial to act independently.

Bronxville townhouse-dweller and interior designer Patti O’Shaughnessy also points to the efficiency of a townhouse’s vertical layout. “Your cost of heating and energy is fairly manageable because you’re in a tower — the heat rises efficiently, and the hot water.

“In a house, you’re often going horizontally and the house might sprawl and that’s a very inefficient model for heating, cooling, and just energy in general,” O’Shaughnessy says. “That’s part of why the townhouse model is being picked up and used in new architecture: because of its efficiency.”

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Yienger notes that the appeal of living in a townhouse has been cross-generational.

“I see couples in their thirties with young children: both parents are working, and they don’t want to spend all of their available time on the weekends caretaking for their home. They want the quality time with their families, they want to be able to walk to the train, so they’re really looking to lessen their days with upkeep so that they can really focus on their families,” says Yienger.

Downsizing boomers

Conversely, Baby Boomers in the marketplace looking to downsize also see the practicality of a townhouse. Often, they have already educated their children and they’re still actively working in the city or elsewhere and also still deeply tied to their community. They may see an opportunity to have attached home living which affords them time to get to their second home, do more with their free time, visit their children.”

“At one point there was probably higher demand from New York City,” Yienger continues, “but now we’re seeing demand from Long Island, New Jersey, upper Westchester — people are really gravitating towards an easier lifestyle.”

The townhouses at Hudson Harbor have been selling well almost since construction began in 2008, says Paul Janos, director of sales and marketing at the development on Tarrytown’s Hudson River shore. These townhomes are four stories, include private elevators and range from 3,500 to 4,500 suqare feet.

One of the important aspects for many buyers is the sense of community in the development, which includes a club house, yoga classes and an outdoor pool.

“We’ve gotten response from a wide demographic,” says Janos. Along with the townhouses, Hudson Harbor also includes carriage houses and loft-style units. “We’ve seen many downsizers, who want to stay in the community, but we’ve also seen a lot of city transplants.” The plusses here are the MetroNorth train is walking distance, as is Main Street in Tarrytown, which has tons of restaurants and shops. The snow is shoveled (there’s indoor parking for owners) and come spring, there are walking paths and gardens, all maintained by the development.

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Frank M. and his family looked at several houses and large apartments in the area, when they relocated to Bronxville from the city, but nothing really clicked. “We lived in an apartment in the city, which was great, but our needs were changing and we wanted to be closer to our family in Westchester,” says Frank.

Agent Andrea Braunstein of Houlihan Lawrence asked if they’d consider a townhouse, an option which hadn’t initially occurred to them. “She sent us the listing for our unit and we knew immediately this was the perfect fit,” he recalls. “First, you can’t beat the location. We are within walking distance to all of the shops and train station, which is similar in feel to the city, which we didn’t want to give up.

“Secondly, we don’t have the concerns we would over a large house. We have the feel of a house with all of the levels, as well as the yard, and we have street access rather than walking through a lobby. But it’s not too much house, which we didn’t want to deal with.”

O’Shaughnessy lived in New York City for 30 years before she and her family left their beloved apartment in the East Village, also for a Bronxville townhouse.

“There was so much building and so much construction going on around us — the lot just to the north of us, like six feet away, was going to be developed into an L shaped building that was going to wrap around our terrace! It just started to feel claustrophobic,” she says. “To literally be looking up at the guys in girders out the window, it just came one step too far and I couldn’t stand it anymore!”

Their busy Union Square neighborhood, always young and vibrant, had also become a little too vibrant, especially as it emerged as the gateway to uber-hip Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I used to make the joke that we’d go away over the summer and come back, and I would feel like we were aging in dog years because the population stayed the same age and we were the only ones getting older!”

O’Shaughnessy and her family actually looked at Williamsburg and other parts of Manhattan, but ultimately felt their life would be more relaxed outside of the city. “It seemed like it would be a lot more peaceful and a lot more pleasant to move here. And it has been; we really love it!”

Some communities area ideal for townhouse living; units are snapped up alsmost as soon as they go on the market in Bronxville, says Yieneger, but communities like Tuckahoe, Pelham, Haverstraw and Tarrytown also have townhouse developments.

“Once we moved here, we realized we didn’t really need the weekend lifestyle that was so important when we were in New York,” says O’Shaughnessy, who gave up the weekend house in Old Lyme shortly after moving to Bronxville. “We didn’t need to get away from the chaos; it was actually pleasant to be here on the weekends. It simplified life by not having a weekend house and two households. We’re fully engaged here.”